Freaks On Parade: Live in Burgettstown
"Rob needs a burger. Maybe some chicken fingers."
Written by Big Bear Buchko

Like every good tale about heavy metal glory, this one starts with Madonna.

Back around May (or so) of 2023, one of our local radio stations happened to be giving away tickets to the big arena tour celebrating the first hundred years of Madonna. “Hear 4 of her 6 greatest hits spread across 19 hours of bullshit!” …they shouted, or maybe that’s just what I heard. But anyway, I dialed in, I was “caller hashtag 10” (that’s stupid, don’t write that) and the joy of winning concert tickets to a popular event was only just slightly eclipsed by everyone’s surprise that you can still win shit on the radio.

The tickets were for her August stop at the Cialis® Erectile Dysfunction Arena near downtown Pittsburgh (none of the hard bands get to play there <rimshot>) but, as we all remember, Madonna caught Legionnaires’ Labical Leprosy after having sex with that Puma, and a whole half of her tour was cancelled across the board – Pittsburgh included. She rescheduled for February, same time and place, and while finally retrieving my tickets from the radio station website a few days before the event, I happened upon the very start of their contest for Freaks on Parade tickets for early September. “Fuck it.” I said, with both mirth and pith, and filled out the online entry contest form with all my delicate details.

February 5^th comes around - day of the concert - all decked out in our best Madonna-era fineries (re: Soviet Army uniforms), and I get a call from the radio station telling me that I’d also won two seats for the Freaks show from the online contest. “AM I THE ONLY PERSON ENTERING THESE?!” I wonder loudly in his direction. But that is how Madonna’s rescheduled bisexualcentennial got me to The Pavilion at Star Lake for Filter, Ministry, Alice Cooper, and Rob Zombie. Music much more my speed than the Material Ghoul’s.

But first, something weird…

You see, as of Friday, August 30^th, I hadn’t been given my tickets for Freaks on Parade. So, I shoot an email. No response. Monday, September 2^nd, still no tickets, I call. It’s a holiday, no problem, I leave a message. No return. FIVE HOURS before the freaking show is when my phone chimes from my TicketSlave account, telling me I’ve been sent two tickets from “Collin.” Massively relieved, text the wife that we’re a “go,” and I start getting my shit together for the evening. About 20 minutes later, I get a phone call from the aforementioned Collin, apologizing for not emailing or calling me back, but just wanted to make sure I’d got the tickets he’d sent. Assured him I had, thanked him repeatedly and excessively, and felt good about the interaction. 30 minutes later is when I received an email from someone else at the radio station, informing me that they had no record of me winning anything other than Madonna and that they have no tickets to give me. I check the notification from Collin. I have two tickets. I check TicketSlave. Two tickets. I go through the venue’s site. Two tickets. These tickets are clearly real and I had clearly spoken to someone. I really wanted to email the guy back to tell him about Collin, but I hesitated out of the fear that he’d tell me “BuT cOlLiN DiEd tRaGiCaLlY tWeNtY yEaRs AgO.” “Nooooo!”

We pull into Burgettstown early for the Star Lake Coca-Cola Post-Gazette Star Lake First Niagara KeyBank Star Lake S&T Bank Music Star Lake Park Pavilion’s infamous eighth-level-of-Hell parking situation with a much smaller group of people than we’d had for Slipknot there a few weeks earlier. No big packs of dirty friends and poly partners; this was the Bear (me), the Bug (my wife), and the Figgy (my 2-year old son, the current youngest of the Buchko klan). Figgy has been coming to concerts with me since he was three months old, and as such, has developed a healthy and excitable appreciation for live music, especially heavy metal. In the last six months alone, he’s seen Static-X, Sevendust, and Slipknot, with plans to take him down to Kentucky in a few weeks to see the reunion of his favorite band – Slayer. Tonight, I was just pleased he was seeing artists that didn’t begin with the letter S. (Seriously, metal people, enough with the S bands. Sepultura. Suicide Silence. System of a Down. Stone Sour. Sanguisuckadog. Seether. Soulfly. Stop it.)

We come early, and to my immediate surprise, the usual blocks-long wait to pull into Star Lake Pavilion is non-existent. “What’s going on?”  I ask my wife, “Where is everybody?” The confusion continues on into the parking lot, as we find ourselves directed to an area much closer to the venue than we’re accustomed to in times past. We load up on baby snacks and bottles of water, smokables and edibles for mom and dad, and with three of us decked out in our family crest of battle jackets, we head for the entrance. No line. We’re through the rat maze of polyester ropes, through search and security, and into the main park of the Pavilion, all in less than 60 seconds. The lines for food and drink are absent, and even the merch booths seemed violently vacant. The ease of access and movement is appreciated, especially with a 2-year-old, but as a concertgoer, it is disconcertingly unexpected. I don’t like it, but I tell myself it’ll change soon. I said “merch booths.” I could go for a t-shirt, sure. Let’s check things out. This won’t horribly depress me in the slightest.

I can’t remember the last time I walked up to a concert merch table and wasn’t immediately disgusted. Infuriated. Static-X had some… somewhat… affordable t-shirts, but for the most part, it seems that artists have taken their losses in streaming and album sales, and passed them onto the cost of our precious and beloved concert t’s, and once again, as I stand in front of graphic designs for Ministry, Filter, Alice and Rob, I am reminded of the genius lyrics of Mr. Mackle More: “Yo… that’s $50.00 for a t-shirt.” Because, yo, that’s the starting price for a fucking t-shirt. It… is… a… T-SHIRT! Design + printing + bulk orders and those rags would turn a profit at fifteen bucks. $50.00? Fuck off. And wouldn’t you much rather twenty kids wear cheaper concert shirts to school than just the one kid that can afford a $50.00 one? This is goddamn preposterous. It’s offensively greedy. And while it’s easily double of what I’m comfortable spending on shirts, I walk away remembering it’s still not the worst I’ve seen… KISS shirts started at $75.00. The only real evil behind heavy metal.

An hour of walking around, finding our seats, enjoying my beloved Greek French Fries, it’s time for Filter to take the stage. I’m not sure I ever knew what Filter, as a band, looked like, and as we’re greeted by the greying visage of their Chandler Bing-looking front man, I can’t help but think: I didn’t know what they’d look like… but this… probably isn’t it.   But. Whatever. Fuck it. We’re all old. Their slot is early, the venue still mostly empty, and while their setlist is only six songs deep, I was pleased to discover I knew three of the six; “Can’t You Trip Like I Do,” “Take a Picture,” and the poetically cynical “Hey, Man, Nice Shot.” It was the middle-mentioned song – “Take a Picture” – where I was surprised to find my wife singing along. “You know this?!” I ask, incredulously, until the chorus kicked in and I realized I knew it as well. “Oh! This is Filter?!” A moment later, the song has ended, and lead singer Richard Patrick addresses the crowd… “That was our biggest hit. And half of you just turned to the person next to you and said “Oh, this is Filter?!”    Oh shit, busted.

But the best part about an event with wall-to-wall performance and a county-dedicated expiration time is that the space between the end of one band and the start of another is considerably limited, and it seemed like only a matter of minutes before we were graced with the sensory-dependent industrial metal gods of Ministry. I’d never seen Ministry, and while I enjoyed their catalogue more than a reasonable amount, I’d always kind of avoided seeing Ministry live. There was some piece of their sound, some indescribable element, that told me it couldn’t be translated to a proper live representation of the band. I don’t really know why, but also… that’s pretty much exactly what happened.

A setlist eight songs deep and I was fan of / familiar with six of them, and even the ones I knew seemed to fall flat. Minimal effort, minimal energy; the only song they seemed to truly come alive for was the classic Mind is a Terrible opening track “Thieves,” but even then, it was simply slightly better than meh. Another detraction from their performance was their decision against using cameras to better show their routine to the people on the lawn or people near the back, instead choosing to show distorted clips of typical late-80s Ministry nonsense. (You know what I mean, watch one of their damn videos.) This lack of… exposure, I guess, didn’t affect our line of sight one bit, but for some reason bothered me on behalf of those not as close. Eight songs of a Ministry setlist and I felt like I’d seen more than I needed to. I’m good. I was just as disappointed as I expected to be. I’m good.

I wandered around the sprawling venue with Figgy in my arms. The biggest thrill for me at this or any of the concerts I’ve taken him to so far… has been walking around with my son, with his cute little mohawk and tiny little battle jacket, watching the genuine reactions of people as he comes into their view and they process what it is that they’re seeing. Everyone wants high-fives and fist-bumps, everyone wants to take his picture, and everyone coo’s and screams when he happily hands them one of our “I Met the Heavy Metal Baby!” stickers we have for him to give away.

Watching how happy it makes people makes me very happy. Watching how happy it makes him to see those people happy also makes me very happy. But nothing makes me happier than watching my wife beam with pride at this amazing human being, that she made with such love and care, existing in this world as his own entity, bringing joy to everything that he touches. She smiles from ear to ear with the biggest, goofiest grin, and with lights dancing in her eyes, I can see that there is nothing in this life that she will love more or that she is more proud of… than the family that we have made together. And this highlights the fundamental flaw in the thinkings of people who only assign negative emotions to heavy metal; to ignore that feelings of such profound existential bliss can foster themselves in such an environment. But they do, and I am proof of that fact.

Of all the bands on the Freaks on Parade roster, it was Alice Cooper that I was the most curious about. I’d had my “Alice Cooper phase” in high school – admittedly already 40 years past his prime, at that point – but he was never someone I’d have gone out of my way to see. That being said, I’ve seen a lot of legends in my day – Prince, Bon Jovi, KISS, Guns ‘n Roses, etc. - and he’s one I’d always wanted to add to my collection. Plus, I mean, we’re both from Detroit, and you gotta represent when your homies roll into town. PLUS, I mean, come on… Nita Strauss? Are you shitting me? That girl is a legend on her own.

The lights dim and we all rush back to our seats, giddy as pie in our old age (which… seems a funny statement, considering “Alice” is a full ten years older than Madonna, and both of whom are 30+ years older than the oldest of us in the party). But the lights go dark, the ambient effects swell, and we are immediately greeted by an impenetrable wall of rock radio-friendly classics and well-documented theatrics. The band is loud and tight; they know what they’re doing and they’re having fun doing it, and somehow Mr. Furnier – in his full “Alice” attire – doesn’t look a day over 55. I mean, don’t get me wrong, he doesn’t look spry… but he also doesn’t look the almost-80 that he is, nor does he act it; singing, strutting, holding his own with as much power and showmanship as I’d seen him having in the ‘70s and ‘80s. It almost didn’t seem real.

As Alice Cooper ‘n Company rumbled through hit after hit, you become aware of what a fantastic blend of prime Billion Dollar Baby nostalgia and modern high-tech entertainuhorror this show has become. I knew what was ahead. I knew there’d be the snake. I knew about the guillotine, and him trotting around with a riding crop. And yet, the lights and the LED screens, the electronic drapery and the lights and programming and rotating stages, it all seemed to complement each other so perfectly that even the pieces I knew to expect were made to seem big and electric and new, and once his hour (+) of material had been exhausted in its entirety, I found myself absolutely blown away by everything that Mr. Alice Cooper had brought to the table. This is how you have a successful career spanning seven decades, and honestly, I can’t wait to see him again.

The only thing I couldn’t understand was why “Alice Cooper” wasn’t the big-name headliner for this show. I get that Rob Zombie may be more of a modern draw, but Alice Cooper is clearly a bigger, much more legacy of an act. To have it go Filter > Ministry > Zombie > Cooper would just have made more sense, and as evidenced by up-to-a-third of the audience that vacated the facility once Alice Cooper left the stage, I clearly wasn’t the only one to have thought so. But in the time between one band and another, while stage hands were setting up all of Rob Zombie’s extensive (and, some would say, over-indulgent) show props, the most common topic of conversation in all directions seemed to be just how amazing we’d all found Alice Cooper to be. It was the titter. It was the subject at hand for everyone, and we all seemed to have loved it.

The lights go low one last time, and the 10,000 or so of us that remain all prepare ourselves in unison for the b-horror schlock that has become Rob Zombie. Now, I liked Rob Zombie, don’t get me wrong. I loved White Zombie. I loved Hellbilly Deluxe. I… liked the Sinister Urge. But, for the most part, that’s where my fandom ended. I’d seen his movies and wasn’t impressed. I’d seen the direction he’d decided to take things with John 5 and Piggy D. – laying harder and harder into the preposterousness of the Grindhouse theme loooong after the novelty had worn off. (His last three albums were called The Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor, the Electric Warlock Acid Witch Satanic Orgy Celebration Dispenser, and The Lunar Injection Kool-Aid Eclipse Conspiracy… for fuck sake. That’s not even me flexing my eccentric surrealism writing style; that’s literally what those fucking albums are called.) So, yes, I’ve become more and more removed from the arena in which I would consider myself a fan. But the lights have gone low one last time, the curtain opens, and the show begins.

There is a fine line between theatrics and… no, you know what, let me put it to you like this: there is a marked line separating “not enough” / “enough” / and “too much,” and Rob Zombie has skipped right over the first two lines into “too much,” hopped in a doom buggy, and driven deep into the forest of Waytoofuckmuchery. Big TV screens behind each band member? Done. A giant screen in the very back behind the drums? Done. Screens on the bottom of the stage and in front of every amplifier? Done. Huge, inflatable monsters and robot props? Done and done. Giant, movable stairs and podiums, huge custom mic stands for seemingly every song (complete with lights, trinkets, and fancy toys), and a whole row of upside down mounted spark cannons? Done, done, done to fucking death, death, death. And this is just what I managed to catch while trying to watch this eye-bleeding extreme sensory monstrosity. Why? Why would he do this? Why is it all so much?

To put it… very mildly: compensation.

Rob Zombie is not “Alice Cooper” old. He’s not even “Madonna” old either. But… he is almost 60, and worse news than that, he is very much a devout vegan. Why do I bring THAT up? Because unlike his shock rocking counterpart in Alice Cooper or the genre-bending Madonna, Rob Zombie’s overall energy and stamina is plummeting - FAST. (Many fans of Madonna have claimed she follows a strict vegan diet, but the Material Ghoul herself has stated numerous times that she’s been an omnivore since her pregnancy in 1996 – probably because the faux heath decisions one makes out of narcissism tend to lose their luster when you have to inflict them upon the health of children.) Rob does not look well. He doesn’t sound well. And he is no longer able to maintain the kind of youthful energy that playing this kind of music requires – not even close. Rob needs a burger. Maybe some chicken fingers.

In fact, it was about halfway through the show that I noticed – ignoring the numerous…. NUMEROUS instances in which he and his band were not in sync or rhythm together – but that he wasn’t singing full lyrical sentences.

Dead I am…
Exterminate…
Slip…
Strang – GET UP! 

He’d try to jump and dance and spin, but would either fail entirely or crap out very quickly. It’s not that he lost his breath or seem winded, he just couldn’t keep up and couldn’t do it anymore. And that is why we were punished with a venomous LED regeneration pompous electric warlock 4K inflatable robot orgy lunar Kool-Aid 9-billion lumen Disney lightshow… to compensate where I feel Rob knows he is lacking, and lacking he certainly is.

Rob Zombie, as a whole, was still fun. He still gives a good time, even with two of his core, long-time band members leaving the project recently and him recruiting the O.G. Hellbilly team of Riggs and Blasko – neither of which seem much up to the task of a heavy metal spectacle in their states and ages either. (While I can’t imagine a greater nightmare than having to do something following in John 5’s footsteps, there are times where they were either botching their attempts on purpose, or were fully, wholly, and totally out of their element. For my guitar tech people, Riggs spent most of the night sounding as if he was playing out of the neck pick-up position, not the body pick-up position, which, for metal, becomes a chunky, chuggy, toneless mess. Riggs, especially, seemed to struggle through his weight, age, and ridiculous hair to even make it through the 90-minute performance.) Really, the only member of the group that played above and beyond expectations was Ginger Fish (drummer Kenneth Wilson). Everyone else needed to hang it up long ago.

With the show over, the three of us make our way to the West Gate exit through the continual exclamations of people seeing Figgy for the first time, when I happen to run into a co-worker and new friend of mine waiting for his date by the bathroom. “Ha! I knew I’d find you here!” I said. “And waiting by the bathroom for a woman that always needs to pee is a great place to look for me too!” I like him. He’s a funny dude. I ask him what he thought of the show. And Sean, like me, like us, like everybody, just wanted to talk about Alice Cooper. Four decent bands on the line-up, and Alice Cooper is still the standout, by far. I think that’s pretty impressive for someone still rockin’ tunes from when my mom was a kid. We shake hands, part ways, and finally find our car in the parking lot.

We never stay a full show, mainly because I can’t sit in traffic trying to get out for that long without losing my mind, but this time we did and, sure enough, we are. On the bright side, we did get to bare witness to a physical confrontation between a young, drunk dude and a much, much bigger guy that the first guy DEFINITELY shouldn’t have been messing with. Everybody had people holding someone back, and it only got physical for a moment but… you’re goddamn right I was filming that shit for you guys!

The drunk one couldn’t keep his mouth shut either; even after the pair was separated, he was still throwing a tantrum and calling for the guy to fight. Oh, dude. He would’ve whupped your ass and it wouldn't have even been close. So, in order of entertainment value for the night, it goes: Alice Cooper, Filter, those two dudes in the parking lot, Rob Zombie, then Ministry. And thinking about it now, a good street fight after the show was the only real element missing from the Madonna concert to make it totally perfect.                   Vogue, motherfucker!